Story Archives 2000

by Leroy Moore, Darla Lennox, Maria Palacios, Zilwood, Tiny

Another group home Christmas

Another year of watching others loved ones

make their once a year obligatory visit

This day just feels like all the others

Told what time to get up

what time to sleep

What he wants to watch on t.v. is already

decided for him,

it's what the staff want to watch.

"Merry Christmas!" the staff say encouraging
him to be happy

"Hey, it's Christmas, let's see what Santa brought you?"

"Are you kidding me?!" he thinks, "I'm a grown ass man!

And what if I don't feel like being merry and bright?

What if I decide to just stay in my room tonight

and spare myself from eating salty lukewarm ham

and cold peas? "

"Yeah, it's another group home Christmas

and wishing like hell I was somewhere else."

Darla J. Lennox

Christmas 2009

by Joe B.

Blunted Wind Chimes

As new life arrives people and things change, gifts are bought, returned,or exchanged for other more needed items.

At Poor Magazine Inc.
its no different

As Office manager, staff writer,columnist, rare sometime,reporter, and reluctant ‘Po Poet some of these changes cause slight problems for example:

When an infant is in a workspace the normal clatter of keyboards, radio sounds,and talking is muted so as to not disturb said infants rest and feeding routine.

I’ve worked for PM Inc. for five or six years I have learned what to be good at and what I’m bad at like answering phones especially when phones have technical problems where I have to repeat what’s said because of a few second delays on the receiver’s of the phone.

The latest crimp is wind chimes. Wind chimes usually are outside of homes or businesses large and small to sound as customer enter.

In this organization or door is inside,on the second floor of a duo business/living space and cannot be hung from outside screened windows.

One set of chimes are hung on the front door near me another on a door behind me leading into another office.

Beside making a racket every time people enter when an infant visits as I said their must be quiet these chimes add not the tingling tinkle of happy sound but noisy thuds inside an enclosed space festive looking they may look but the application fails when an infant’s sleep is disturbed.

Myself,knew this is going to be a problem for me as well as I have already suggested to both bosses "Those chimes are just more noise to me but since I’m an employee it doesn’t matter at least they know my opinion.

A way to combat excess noise pollution in my personal workplace is the use of tape any tape from duck,electric to scotch tape wrapping it around chimes muffling the sound to dull thuds.

Of course the tape is taken off after a few days when bosses don’t here happy tinkle noise.

I replace it wraping more and more tape around it.

I really think it silly having wind chimes placed where there’s no wind unless it where children, adults use them to signal breakfast,lunch,dinner, rest,playtime,or special events as in birthdays, births,or various kinds of anniversaries.

I know it’s a small niggling thing but like vacuuming,sweeping, mopping floors wiping brass doorknobs is a bit too much.

I also so don’t clean venetian blinds or clean windows, and if ever I begin babysitting that’s the end of my working at Poor M.

I do lots of stuff not strictly part of office management – copying whole or part of newsprint, magazine articles,other people’s work,or transcribe voices to text.
[This probably won’t be seen publicly so I’ll print this reminding me of my agenda of becoming an author of fiction with an independent life finally and forever achieved.

I wonder can City Lights help me in this as they see my work radically differs from Poor ’s.]

Anyone who has struggled to be where they are and finally make know of what I speak, can snail mail or email me also.

1000 Market Street #418

San Francisco, Ca. 94103

1-510-533-0469


Donations C/0 Poor Magazine

1448 Pine Street #205

San Francisco,CA 94103

Email: askjoe@poormagazine.org

by Joseph Bolden

The errors are from trying to work fast and not giving myself enough time in the day to complete all my work and starting again the next day.

The computer dedicated duty is to keep track of dates of writing not realizing human sometimes with not enough time will continue their work another day.

This being a two part effort with near similar titles confuses the programing hence all the dates of creation and/or recreation.

From now on I'll make time for columns written completing them in the same day even if they were thought up days before.

Once again my apologies.

by By JENNIFER STEINHAUER (reprinted from the NY Times, courtesy of The Emergency Coalition to Save Public Health)

The city's Health and Hospitals Corporation, strapped for cash and
desperate to find new income, has begun charging a universal fee for
prescription drugs at the pharmacies of all its public hospitals and
community clinics.

Under the new policy, which was quietly introduced last month,
patients are charged a $10 "processing fee" for each prescription
filled, with a cap of $40. There are also some exemptions.

The policy has already come under criticism from health care experts
and doctors, who say the fees will discourage the poor and uninsured -
the most frequent users of the pharmacies - from getting the drugs
they need. The critics say such patients will end up in the hospitals'
already overcrowded emergency rooms as their untreated conditions
become serious.

Previously, the corporation allowed its 11 hospitals and 6 clinics to
decide whether or not to set a fee, and what that amount should be.
Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, for example, charged $10 per
prescription with a cap of $30. At Gouverneur Diagnostic and Treatment
Center in Lower Manhattan, there were no fees at all.

Dr. Luis R. Marcos, president of the Health and Hospitals Corporation,
said the systemwide fee was just one of many measures being taken to
stave off the $313 million deficit the corporation expects to face
this fiscal year. "The corporation has reached its limit of providing
health services for which no one is willing to pick up the tab," he
said. "I believe it is fair to ask patients who can afford it to pay
for prescriptions."

The new policy does not affect those who obtain medication during
hospital stays or during an emergency room visit. Also exempt are
those in public programs for AIDS or prenatal care, those with
tuberculosis or teenagers who receive oral contraceptives.

Patients with insurance, including Medicaid, are to pay their
prescription program's lowest co-payment, which in many cases may be
lower than the $10 fee. Dr. Marcos said he hoped this would encourage
uninformed or reluctant patients to apply for Medicaid, which has
become the corporation's main source of steady income. Some patients
and advocates for the poor say there have been problems with the new
policy, including a shortage of financial counselors who are supposed
to help patients enroll for Medicaid or negotiate for lower fees.

"We did an observation at seven hospitals and two treatment centers
and observed long lines to see a counselor," said Judy Wessler,
director of the Commission on the Public's Health System, a health
care advocacy organization.

Several patients said they were told that they must pay amounts above
the $40 cap, and were turned away when they said they did not have the
money - even though the policy states that no patient is to leave
empty handed because of inability to pay.

Celeste Almonte, for instance, left Gouverneur a week ago without any
of her medications, including those for diabetes and asthma, because
she said she was told her fee was $50. Ms. Almonte, who is 55 and on
Medicare, has no pharmacy benefit. She has a month of drugs left and
said that she had no idea how she would get her next batch. "What a
pity," Ms. Almonte said. "It is too much money for me."

Confusion over the specifics may spring in part from the way hospitals
are informing patients about the policy. At the clinic at Gouverneur,
a sign in the waiting room explained that a $10 fee would be imposed
and that financial counselors would be available. But it did not
mention the medical conditions and drugs that are exempt from the
policy, or other payment options. Other patients learn of the policy
only at the systems' pharmacy counters.

The corporation said it was working to inform patients better. Each
hospital is now sending out explanatory letters, and is working to
improve waiting-room communication. Dr. Marcos said that he had not
heard about centers overcharging or turning patients away empty
handed. He also said that financial counselors were available during
all hours that clinics were open.

For the past five years, the corporation balanced its budget through
cost cuts and other moves, but has been hammered with an increasing
load of uninsured patients, coupled with reduced payments from
government and private insurance programs. In 2000, 564,476 uninsured
patients came through its health care centers, a 30 percent increase
from 1996. In the same period, Congress reduced Medicare
reimbursements to hospitals, while Medicaid reimbursements to primary
care clinics remained basically unchanged, and drug costs increased 16
percent between 1999 and 2001.

But others argue that the new policy may compromise public health,
citing studies that show that the poor often forgo medications and
health care when costs increase. "Almost all the research that has
been done suggests that the health impact of a drug co-payment policy,
particularly for poor and elderly people, is adverse," said Dr. Jan
Blustein, an associate professor of health policy and management at
New York University. Dr. David Stevens, a doctor at Gouverneur, said
that some patients with chronic illnesses have run out of medicine
since the policy was introduced, and may end up in emergency rooms as
their conditions worsen.

Some health care policy experts suggest that the corporation seek
other options, like drug formularies, which limit doctors to
lower-cost brands. Others believe payments should be made on a sliding
scale, as clinic visit fees are. Dr. Marcos said the corporation was
developing a formulary system, but added that doctors and drug
companies frequently put up considerable obstacles.

by Joe B.

I’m in Sudafed-non-aspirin haze as a gray, light to heavy drizzle began falling.

How would I know in a drug induced haze? I’m just getting over the flu.

I took those medicines at 6am with water while washing down said legally bought drugs.

Its Thursday, March, 7, 2002 my brain has gone blank... Oh yeah, The “2002 San Francisco Homeless Summit will begin at 8:15 a.m. in the Herbst Theater

Veterans Building 401 Van Ness Avenue.

Mrs. A. Fay, Lisa, and I meet up at POOR’s 2nd. Floor.

While waiting falling in and out of sleep the drizzle became louder and the sky from POOR’s squared-off picture window are grayer, darker, nearly night.

Unfortunately We, that is Fay, Junebug, Lisa and I arrived in this pandemonium in the Herbst Theater ruining my I-can-go-home ‘n’ sleep, visit girlfriend in Berkeley-staying undercover all-day because-of-rain daydream; it tingles and stimulates and is the only reason I like heavy rain or thunder showers.

Tiny’s gray car is hard to see in this monochrome gray environment.

At 8:27 I’m ‘thinkin we’re late so “The ‘PO Poets may not have time to do their stuff which means no Joe “Slam Bio” wrong.

Everyone’s slightly late it this important event Supervisor Chris Daly gently rushed us into “The Green Room” [The faded green carpet seems to be why its named though green isn’t the exclusive color] for our on stage presentation.

Leroy Moore, of (DAMO) [Disability Advocates Of Minority Organization].
With A. Fay, myself, Junebug, Poet/Low Income Housing Advocate, Tiny, half of the Co-Editor’s of POOR Magazine, Mari, on Youth Commissioner beginning around 1996 or 7 by Mayor Willie Brown as a way of having young people’s ideas and coordinate problems and solutions that young people face in society today.

I dislike being on stage, in public but once out there you don’t want to let others down and you do your best while being absolutely terrified.

I spotted Mr. James Tracy of “Right To A Roof” Its everyone is confused as their rushed this way or that, but confusion as my normal condition is like a drunk walking straight during an earthquake.

A woman with a stroller and child is having trouble entering the building because of the security guard which is a bad sign for a summit for poor folks and they are supposedly invited.

It might be a minor mishap or an indication that maybe poor folks are not gonna be help and this is another political publicity stunt.

Now safely seated at a POOR table to smooze, inform, and sell our wares we’ve created see George Smith, Amos Brown, Tom Ammiano, and Gavin Newsom some other familiar faces flitted by but their names escape me.

At 10:46 am. The drugs are beginning to ware off as the stuffy, congested throat fogged head and lowered reaction time turns crowds and individuals into movie-like slow mo freeze framed images and my bladder began asking why I drank some tea and water earlier in the morning.

Later Isabel arrived her face clouded and fuzzed at the edges her navel's what I my eyes see telescoped there “An outtie” nice navel I thought absently before looking at her face or may have said it aloud still in a half sleep/awake stupor.

Answering questions, collecting moneys, looking for change, explaining POOR’s mission, nodding off slightly missing time doesn’t feel good plus the one person-table works for short periods but not when.

Lunch is on the second floor in yet another green room. Time expands so does my bladder.

I had to go bad yet stay to watch over money jar and salable items.

Luckily a flu slows everything down, after placing most magazines, handbooks, flyers, and taking money jar with me I go the restroom, empty sun yellow liquid which means I need I’m dehydrated and must drink more water.

I impulsively decide to grab a lunch of my own on the second floor.

Supervisor, Chris Daly is outside and a suited man tells me where the room is.

Inside lots or camera’s, reporters, and people sitting chairs or pews and next to me a table full of white plastic bags.

“Is that a donation for us?” a photographer jokes.
“Just our own”

I say grabbing a white bag, exiting quickly to the elevator.

Walking back to the table slowly until I’m once again sitting still feeling the slow motion effects the flu.

Waiting for my nosebleed to signal an end to my illness.

I continue selling what items I can as the Homeless Summit continues.

While eating lunch I legally re-drugged myself with Sudafed and non aspirin; I’ve forgotten if you take those medications separate or together - thinking “oh-well I take them together as I eat a tuna fish sandwich and wash it down with a strawberry-kiwi soda.

It’s only then I thought “You’re not suppose to mix medcations together oh-well.

I began nodding off, missing gaps in time, going the bathroom, and suddenly talking to Lisa, Mari, Junebug, and Isabell unless the latter is a waking dream.

Time slowed, quickened, there is a heated discussion of John John Whane Bobbit, Lorraina Bobbit, partial castration, and a porn career, also Vagina Monologues, and being hit a lot for saying the wrong things at the wrong time to the wrong person.

Soon it was nearly time and I gathered what it needed before leaving the building.

The whole day seemed like a floating gossamer wing with nothing attached.

I hope poor folks, their advocates, reporters and politico’s get the message that improved, better, higher 'tech skills, education, and alternative work situations are possible and feasible.

Low-income housing, is not Affordable Housing and the Minimum Wage should always be continually Cost-Of-Living Adjusted so alternative ways of work is no longer locked into one mindset.

As soon as I get this stuff safely at POOR’s office I’m going home that is if I don’t end up sleeping in Local 6’s Union Hall tonight which is looking better and better to me.

Joseph Bolden/Poor Magazine
Staff Writer

by PNN Staff

New York- In a sharp rebuke to the administration of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, federal officials have decided to bypass city agencies in handing out millions of dollars in government money to those who help the homeless. The mayor said the change was motivated by politics.

U.S. Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo said the change is necessary following a federal court ruling that found city officials demonstrated a pattern of antagonism and acted with "retaliatory intent" against a nonprofit service provider that had criticized the mayor. The provider eventually lost $2.4 million in federal funds.

The change means the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will distribute federal money directly to those helping homeless people, rather than using the city as a middleman.

"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is acting in the best interests of homeless people in New York City, to ensure that the most qualified homeless assistance programs get our funding," Cuomo said Tuesday.

Giuliani accused Cuomo, a Democrat, of playing politics, noting his support of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate bid and that a regional HUD director under Cuomo, Bill DeBlasio, was recently named Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager.

To miss the connection, "I would have to be extremely naive, and I'm not," said Giuliani,who is expected to seek the Republican nomination to run for Senate. "There's no question that Andrew Cuomo runs a major league political operation."

Giuliani, however, said the city can't fight the change.

"I don't think we can," he said. "It's their money."

Last month, a federal court found that the city downgraded the performance of Housing Works, a nonprofit group that operates two houses for homeless people suffering from AIDS, mental illness and drug addiction, because of the group's public opposition to the mayor's AIDS policies rather than its effectiveness.

The lower rating prevented Housing Works from receiving $2.4 million in federal funds to cover three years of operating expenses for the two residences. The city has appealed the ruling.

"This fully vindicates what we've been saying. He has been using the process to reward his allies and punish others," said Charles King, co-executive director of Housing Works.

Giuliani denied he had any political interest in punishing Housing Works.

Later Tuesday, at a state Democratic Committee holiday party where Mrs. Clinton spoke, Cuomo's wife, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, stood up and bragged about what Cuomo had done, saying: "Just a few hours ago, my husband pulled up the gauntlet."

She went on to criticize Giuliani's homeless policies and added: "Next time Rudy, pick on someone your own size."

Judges have temporarily stopped Giuliani's plan to evict homeless adults, who refuse to work, from city shelters. POOR magazine staff hopes that Cuomo's action will also impact all of King Giuliani's archaic anti-poverty measures, such as his recent act of ordering police to arrest homeless people who refuse orders to move from sidewalks.

If an upcoming election spurs this kind of event, maybe there should be an election every day in America. Thank-you Mr.Cuomo!!

by Leroy Moore

We have an emergency on our hands
Do you understand
Sisters and mothers
Aunts and Grandmothers
Are crying, shouting and yelling

Help! Please help!
Ignored, oppressed and abused
Disabled women of color
Needs you

On the streets
Can you believe
The state has sterilized me
Divorce from my husband, family and community

Beaten on
Kicked out
Shot up
No sirens, no ambulance, nobody gives a fuck

Emergency, HELP, emergency
98% unemployment rate
Sisters don’t want to relate
Very hard to live in this society

Grown up with violence
Father in my bed
|Billie-club upside my head
The only way to make money is to give head

My father was my first
My cell-mate was my second and

My x was my last
Still waiting for my first love
Caught between two worlds
Limping and pushing to the boarder
Disabled woman an easy target for the INS
Disabled immigrant woman can’t be a citizen of the US

Social promotion
Another year in special education
Can’t read the job application
Race, sex and disability discrimination

Margarett L. Mitchell shot by LAPD
Vijai Rajan rejected by the INS
Ya Fang Li roughed up by SFPD
Can’t you see there is an emergency in our society

Disabled women of color
Living under pressure
We need some answers
Time is ticking and we are sick of waiting

It’s time to take a stand
No more lines in the sand
We need a bulletproof plan
Sisters’ our blood is on your hands

Disabled women of color
It’s time to speak our anger
We need to educate our sisters, brothers and leaders
We can only get stronger if we come together

Living under a state of emergency
Disabled women of color tell your story
We belong to three communities
Listen to our history

Harriet Tubman led slaves to freedom
Fredia Kahlo painted her pain
Alicia Alonso danced through the light and darkness
Wilma Mankiller taught her people community organizing

Disabled women of color
It’s time to plan for our future
Break the silence
We have no time for this nonsense

by Thorton Kimes

The U.S. Postal Disservice recently threatened to begin closing many post office branches around the country—their rationalization, that the increasing dominance of e-mail and cell phone texting in many peoples’ daily lives continues to take huge bites out of the USPS’ ability to make a profit and stay in business.

Locally, the USPS wants to close, at the very least, 2 of the 3 North of Market branches in San Francisco, including 9th and Market/Fox Plaza and the General Delivery site at Hyde and Turk Streets. The branch at 450 Golden Gate, which this poverty scholar didn’t even realize existed until recently, is the preferred survivor of the mail branch slaughter.
Poor folks, as always, will bear the brunt of this latest reduction in services. We also tend to be the last on the list to find out about drastic changes being planned.
The 9th and Market/Fox Plaza branch is rarely empty, but the lines would be shorter if the stamp machine that used to be located near the front entrance was returned. The staff at that place has, perhaps, been forced to be less than generous and no longer has an easily accessible Scotch tape dispenser where a customer could just grab a piece of tape to seal an envelope (ya just can’t trust envelopes any more…)—you have to wait in line and ask for it.

Exactly what will happen to the General Delivery service, which many houseless/landless folks in San Francisco depend on to get mail in general and to get very important Welfare documents in specific, also almost the only service (other than mail boxes…not very many because it is actually a small building) that is provided at the Hyde & Turk location?
The USPS, at the very least, needs to make the 450 Golden Gate branch more visible and should expand services at Hyde/Turk to include selling stamps via living breathing bodies or stamp machines. Less is not better, except for poverty!

by Joseph Bolden

Immortals,We

While sweating out General Assistance known to most po' folk as G.A.

I know, when do poor people have time to think of eternal while working in the now?

Its not I think of it all the time but it's the darn applied science of the everyday that draws me to it.

Knowing that if it were a few centuries past or even five decades I'd be long dead of pneumonia, kidney, or lung disease without todays medical science.

Every country has myths, legends of long lived and eternal women, men, boys, and girls.

I've been thinking of this war begun by we-know-who.

Monies made by international corporations and individuals.

That this person will leave office with the country a debtor nation instead of formally ending it before a new President takes office.

Humans have always had wars the very first one and the other against other humans.

Death stalks us, has won mostly, though were making inroads from heart, brain, death, and cell death on the molecular level (remember that word molecular).

Humanity has woken up from its death’s only dream to the awakened reality that we a species can if not defeat it all at once can at least create inroads all over its domain.

I have thought we're great at devising ingenious ways of killing ourselves in ever larger mass numbers. Why not be as ingenious in saving ourselves equally?

Let's challenge the unknown and I don't mean peace the undiscovered country of peace--I mean that other unexplored, undiscovered country of life extension, immortality, and eternal life!

If researchers, scientists, student undergrads, and graduate students from around the globe could work placing their theories, data, hard sciences, all the old and constantly updated new findings patching all the complex mechanisms of aging, reversal, rejuvenation,
slowing, retarding, stopping of the aging processes of-in human.

That would be the greatest all out war on the one enemy all humans face every second of our lives.
Recently I saw a show in the wee hours of the morning about Nanotechnology: The Science Of Small and the ways which the science could be used or abused.

If there are stringent safeguards and nanotech improves it would still scare those who still have vested interest in death for example churches, funeral bus, or people still death oriented.
A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, roughly the width of three or four atoms. The average human hair is about 25,000 nanometers wide
From www.crnano.org/basic.htm#questions
Along with genomics, cloning, cyberneitcs, and stem cell sciences could possibly coble up the first steps of shoe string immortality for all humans.

We've proved we can die for many causes dear to us now let us show how we can live for far causes we cannot as yet conceptualize.

Let us redesign ourselves for the better. And as for our Gods and Goddessses; they too may continue or not--it is up to our strivings, mental abilities--be the species that can live anywhere, travel, far, and eventually meet other travelers or make different independent species from us seeding the cosmos if we are truly alone.

It is up to us to take on this last battle and though we may never be deathless--we that chose to--can live, love, learn, and be whatever we chose as time permits.

And for those thinking this is total gonzo whacko just sit back, watch, age, and die don't worry about being part of the ongoing uplift improving of humanity.

Everyone has the choice of being a part or sitting back and letting things ride.

Send comments to telljoe@poormagazine.org or jsph_bldn@yahoo.com. Also, listen to Joe play those "Bolden Oldies"
on www.liberationradio.net

by Tony Robles

I’m at work sitting across the desk from my co-worker Solo. His eyes are tired and watery. He leans back in his chair awash in the overhead florescent light. “I want to go back home”, he says. He speaks of the tsunami that hit his homeland on Sept. 29th and the image he saw of a slipper floating on water on TV. Four 15-foot waves triggered by an undersea earthquake hit the island of American Samoa, waves crashing into everything in its wake a mile inland. We sat and watched the images together, images of wrecked boats, cars, destroyed houses. The reports indicated that the tsunami had destroyed all low-lying areas and struck too rapidly for a full evacuation. He pointed out places he knew, like the local fishery and parking lot. “I want to go back and help my people”.

I met Solo a few months ago. I remember when he walked through the door for the swing shift. I thought he was Filipino. He was about 6 foot 2, 220 lbs. I’m Filipino. Sometimes I wish I was 6’4”, 220. We work as security guards at an apartment complex in the city. Our uniforms are the same—jacket with fur collar, polyester shirt, badge and shoulder patch with some kind of Celtic symbol. We worked a few days when I asked him, “What are you?” “I’m Samoan”, he said. Some of the residents at the complex tell him he looks like the wrestler known as “The Rock”. That makes him laugh. I don’t respond. We spend our shift communicating on a 2-way radio. Lots of static on that radio.

A couple weeks ago I was drinking coffee. The TV was on and the coffee fumed as the images passed over the screen: people in water, neck deep; children and elders hovered together on buildings, people wading through mud and debris; elders and mothers looking up to the sky amidst the destruction of their communities, their homes. Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines on September 26th bringing a month’s worth of rain in just 6 hours. Manila was covered in water. I’ve never been to the Philippines. My grandparents left our indigenous homeland in the 1920’s. I speak no Filipino but I feel Filipino. I recall my cousin saying to me, “You couldn’t make it in the P.I.”. He used to be in the Navy.

Solo sits across from me, the light reflecting on a desk that cannot hide its scratches. We take our break in the guard office. On the wall to the left is a map of San Francisco; in back is a map of the world.

“Eat” Solo says in a way that reminds me of family. He brings food in Tupperware containers: ham, pineapple, chicken, rice and fish. “Eat” he says again, gesturing for me to take as much as I want. The way he shares is food is Filipino. He lets me take a helping first. Then he serves himself. He then walks to the soda machine and buys drinks for both of us. I tell him he eats like a Filipino. He puts the rice in his mouth and we share our laughter. I wonder if he thinks I laugh like a Samoan.

“Back home I go fishing”, Solo says. With a spear and snorkel and flashlight”. He talks about catching lobster and fish. He says that when the fish are caught, he first shares it with his neighbors, then brings the rest home to his family. Solo is from a big family of 8—5 boys and 3 girls. To share is part of Samoan culture. “Back in Samoa, if you walk in front of another person’s house, they call you in to eat. We are a sharing people, a giving people. In Samoa, people respect the elders, here they don’t care”.

We finish eating and walk around the apartment complex we are hired to guard. It’s time to close the swimming pool. Many folks in the pool are young, many are white and from Orange county, among other places. They sometimes sneak into the pool, their form of entitlement. We tell them that the pool is closed. Through the trees we can see the moon. Solo looks at the blue water of the pool. “Back home in Samoa, the water is deeper than this”, he says.

Solo works 2 jobs. He’s tired much of the time. He sends money back home to his wife. His other job is doing security at a hotel. He sees young girls, drunk, late at night during all night parties. Where are their mothers, he asks. Back home in Samoa, the young do not leave their parents. The families stay together.

Solo came to the US 3 years ago from American Samoa. His uncle is pastor of a church in the city. Solo came to help with the church. He is the Sunday school coordinator, plays guitar and serves breakfast to the elders in the congregation (oatmeal, hot bread and cocoa rice). He loves to sing. His baritone is rich. He’ll sometimes sing that old song, “The Green Grass of Home”. I asked him why his homeland is called American Samoa. He paused and said he didn’t know. There are 2 Samoa’s he says, Western (Independent) and American Samoa. Sometimes he and his friends ponder the question but those moments come and go. It is a legacy similar to the Filipino experience: colonization and displacement from lands. American Samoa is considered an American territory (it is the size of Washington DC), land that was divided between the Germany and the US. There was an indigenous resistance movement to the colonization but was suppressed by the US Navy. A committee was sent to “investigate” the status of American Samoa, a committee made up of the same people involved in the overthrowing of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

We sometimes sit in his car and he’ll play music from back home. The songs are in Samoan and praise the creator. I went home and found a Samoan radio station online called, “Showers of Blessings”. I think of the downfall in the Philippines, one month’s worth of rain in 6 hours. The music is beautiful like the music in Solo’s car.

We go back to the security guard office and sit at the desk. We talk about the typhoons that have hit the Philippines and Samoa, and Indonesia. He wants to go back home more than anything. On the radio a commercial for the California lottery comes on. “If I won the lottery, I’d take the money and rebuild all the houses”, he says. His family moved to high ground on the island. Many have died. The airport was shut down and roads and communication have been severely damaged.

He told me the story of an old woman in a wheelchair. The younger one’s were trying to move her to safety. The woman told them, “Leave me, just go. I know that it is God’s love. That water is God’s love touching me”. A field supervisor for the Security Company that employs us, also Samoan, told me that the Samoan people survive because of their love for and faith in God. Big people, big heart, she said. We sat for a while, not saying anything. Then we got up and went on our patrol.

To help our brothers and sisters in Samoa, send your contributions to POOR Magazine, 2940 16th Street #301, San Francisco, CA 94103